


(anymore)

by orphan_account



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Cybernetic Implant!Ezra, Episode: s02e21-22 Twilight of the Apprentice, Gen, Trans!Ezra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 08:05:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13700346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Lord Vader is still proud of Ashoka (Season 2) (Updated but still needs editing)Mando'a title: Nayc munitHuttese title: Nobata longah





	(anymore)

**Author's Note:**

> TW for an attempt to kill or capture former apprentice.

Lord Vader did not have time to go chasing after stray Jedi that Order 66 hadn't weeded out, that's why there were Inquisitors to begin with. If he had time to go hunting, the religion would've been dead for a long, long time.

 

He honestly hated Inquisitors - they were simple-minded Sith who didn't know squat about how to just squash a bug fast - they preferred to stick them in a jar and let them suffocate slowly. And while that was fun to do, he longed for a lightsaber battle that'd be challenging and worth his while every now and then, but it wasn't effective if you were wiping out a species.

 

  
Even though he wasn't actively tracking them down, he had a memory card filled with the names and occasionally pictures of Jedi who hadn't been wiped out yet, which was made from old Temple records and sightings of the Jedi in question.

 

There were three Jedi in particular that interested him- Kanan Jarrus (formerly Caleb Dume, from the Temple records) Ezra Bridger, Dume's padawan, and Ashoka Tano.

 

The first one in question, Dume, was an interesting one. Former Padawan of Depa Bilaba (Bilaba, he'd met her a few times during the Clone Wars, she was a perfect master - mysterious, vauge, wise, but also a good general, with excellent strategies and tactics that he'd found himself borrowing a few times during the Clone Wars, but also once or twice in the imperial reign.

 

He'd escaped Order 66 (as most who were still alive did), had bought an astounding amount of booze over the course of three years (he was especially fond of a drink called Cortyg Brandy, a strong Wookie drink that they made weaker for humans simply because they couldn't handle that much booze, also he'd first used the name of Kanan Jarrus on the drink tabs)

 

Then he'd joined a rebel cell and began to cover up his tracks, but there were a few things he'd found from the years after joining the crew:

 

The purchase of a neck-and-shoulder armour set on Garel from a local blacksmith, but only purchasing one shoulder's worth, the left shoulder, in YOE9, that he'd worn in the original paint job (dark, dark blue, shade BE4467) until around YOE12 when he'd gotten a custom paint job (green, shade GY5902).

 

And most interestingly, he'd taken on a padawan in YOE14, though he was but a half-baked padawan potato himself.

 

Then there was the padawan in question, Ezra Bridger. He'd been born on Lothal on Empire Day, YOE1, as Abigail Bridger. He was born the very first Empire Day, though it wasn't celebrated as such because they were still securing the galaxy. No matter, though. The fact remained.

 

His parents had been rebels, Mira and Ephraim Bridger, running a series of transmissions that suddenly stopped with no warning - that was because his parents had been arrested on Empire Day, YOE7. Their son- daughter, actually- hadn't been captured.

 

He had some records of being in local prisons, sentences ranging from a night to thirty days. Most were for thievery, others were for disturbing the peace.

 

But in late YOE13, he'd joined the rebel cell that Dume was in, and that's where all began to get cloudy, just like Dume.

 

He sort of wondered what kind of training Bridger was getting, since Dume hadn't finished his own training. Was there a padawan braid involved? He'd fogotten to look when he was summoned to see if he could get anything out of the boy three months after he'd been captured.

 

The boy had been weak, his mind half broken, more dead than alive, but he hadn't told them anything. He sort of admired his strength.

 

And then there was Ashoka Tano.

 

She wasn't a Jedi (anymore) but she was his former padawan. And she'd been seen, sporting a KI-00 blaster until YOE2, when she killed the Sixth Brother, and it appeared that she'd purified the crystals, for after that, she was seen with a white lightsaber with a curved hilt, and a shoto white lightsaber, also with a curved hilt, and the Fifth Brother showed him a picture of her, with Bridger and Dume, those lightsabers, so much like the ones she'd used as his padawan, only with curved hilts and white blades, and still using the unorthodox reverse-grip Shien style he'd taught her long, long ago.

 

She was so grown up. He was proud of her, and he wanted to order that since she wasn't a Jedi she shouldn't be hunted.

 

But he wanted to reunite with his Snips, bring her to the dark side, train her again.

 

When Inquisitors traded stories of her-

 

_"She's so fast, she becomes a blue and white and red blur, striking at you, not quite beating you but holding her own against you."_

  
_  
"She is like the Grey Jedi of old, neither Jedi nor Sith, making her quite confusing."_

 

_"You haven't lived until you've fought her."_

 

Lord Vader was proud.

 

When he heard that Bridger, Dume, and Ashoka were found on Malachor when the Seveth Sister, Fifth Brother, and Eighth Brother were sent to find the Shadow, he waisted no time getting in his personal TIE and making the jump to hyperspace.

 

And now here he was, destroying Bridger's lightsaber quickly, getting him on the ground at his mercy-

 

And then his Ashoka stepped out.

 

She was incredible with her twin lightsabers, and she slashed his mask open and saw his face.

 

" _Anakin_ ," she whispered.

 

Though Ashoka was not a Jedi (anymore) she was extremely noble like one, pushing Bridger and the injured Dume to leave the planet while she dueled him, refusing to leave him again.

 

Both emerged from the duel tired, weakened, neither the winner, but Vader was now sure of some things:

 

• That Ashoka would not become a Sith no matter how hard he tried.

 

• Broken mind links karking _hurt_ when you're near the person who was on the other side of the now broken link.

 

• He was proud of Ashoka. Even though he was not a Jedi (anymore) and she was not his padawan (anymore) he would always be proud of her.

 

• His master would not let him bring her back if she had let him take her back, unless she'd been turned Sith, and that wouldn't happen, or she was his prisoner, and his Snips deserved better.

 

So he did his (former) padawan a favour by letting her go, not taking her with him. She had no way off the planet, but she could fend for herself. She'd survive.

 


End file.
